@ovcrwctch said, "No, don't worry about me." Reinhardt points at Sigma with his pulse-probed index finger, seeing the concern all over his face. "I'm fine, Angela is just being incredibly stubborn." He insists, despite the fact that his hand is almost shaking from exhaustion and he is fully in a hospital bed with bandages over a lot of his body. Shrapnel and deep cuts from where his damaged suit bent in and dug into him. Reinhardt had been a crucial part of getting everyone out of that ambushed building, but it had cost him all of his energy and quite a bit of blood. To Reinhardt, he just needed a nap and a beer and he'd be fine, forgetting he was not a young soldier anymore. (a little angst oops, could be Sig or Siebren who visits him)
This is the consequence of attachment, SIEBREN has explained that in painstaking detail many, many times. It simply didn’t matter how much he could love any one person; the fact of the matter was that there would always be margin for error– there would always be potential for accidents to occur in the line of duty. It was just something that SIGMA was expected to accept, expected to disallow it from clouding his better judgement whether out upon the field or here, within the sterility of the medical ward. He is expected to accept the liability of caring for another living being simply because it is a fact of the life they are living.
And if he didn’t desire this degree of heartbreak, he would’ve left the earth entirely.
“... Don’t be that way with me.” SIGMA murmurs coldly as he drifts into the unpleasant sterility of Rein’s private room within the emergency wing of the facility, towards his bedside to gaze down at him listlessly. At the surface, one might believe SIGMA to be upset with Rein directly, for having gotten injured in the first place, but in reality, he’s in shock at the notion that he could have lost the Crusader without ever having been present to witness– to observe– what could have been Rein’s final moments.
How clueless he would’ve been, being here at base and blissfully unaware of what had occurred.
How he could have died so utterly alone and so far removed from SIGMA’S ability to comfort.
A gloved hand delicately descends upon the back of Rein’s unsteady hand, careful to avoid disturbing the apparatus connecting the i.v. to him, as he guides it back to the bed firmly– though it remains as he gently squeezes the other man’s wrist reassuringly. “... You sustained a significant amount of internal bleeding. Your internals are significantly traumatized– you should not be so quick to downplay such significant damage.” SIGMA is very aware, by now, of Angela’s ability to pull one’s very life from the abyssal waters of death; how she forces the body back into compatibility with life.
Even despite his lack of medical expertise, his ANOMALY tells him all he needs to know: the fact of the matter is that this had, very well, killed him– it was only by Doctor Ziegler’s intervention that he’d come home alive at all. It’s evident in how little energy he has, how even just turning his head seems too taxing, how weakened his state appears, in conjunction with the obvious damage to his body. In the back of his mind, SIEBREN reminds him that this is the price of his choice, that it would be significantly more beneficial to remove himself from the room– to distance himself from Rein, and give himself the opportunity to allow his emotions to stabilize.
… But he can’t do that, can he? He loves Reinhardt– he could never abandon him.
That’s why, despite the visceral disgust of the sterile visuals and scents of the room, despite his blatant upset at both Rein, for downplaying his concern, and at OVERWATCH, for not practicing better strategies to avoid placing Rein in this position, SIGMA carefully climbs onto the bed with him. There’s a large degree of hesitation and awkwardness in his manner of execution, as, deep down, he knows he shouldn’t interfere with Reinhardt in this state– yet he persists, ever so carefully easing himself up onto the already-narrow hospital gurney so that he can lie– thankfully weightlessly– upon Rein, as his large body curls up to reduce what he could of his size. Tears freely stream down his face in such close proximity to the pain that radiates from Rein, but he stays right there beside him, pressing his face into his shoulder sullenly, as he attempts to tap into the deeper, more soothing vibrational frequencies of his ANOMALY to better comfort his significant other… Silently reminding himself of every little nuance he loved in regards to Reinhardt, in an attempt to jumpstart the cloying, restorative properties it tended to offer biological lifeforms.
It wasn’t much, considering how adrift he found himself within his grief, but coupled with the various machines and medications Rein was connected to, it would certainly make a substantial difference towards his level of pain.
“... Please don’t leave me, Starlight. I could not bear to imagine what I would have to do without you…”
“You cannot leave me like this…” SIGMA whispers hoarsely against Rein’s messy beard. “... If you loved me, you would come home safely– you would not put me through this, Reinhardt…”
"I just want to love you-- and yet everything you do tears my heart to pieces." The astrophysicist places a hand upon his sternum, his touch is so delicate it's barely there-- yet there it is, as he traces delicate circles upon his chest.
"... I'm not asking you to abandon your calls to action, I know better than that... But is it very fair of you to go and throw your life away after you've gone through the trouble of uprooting me from my life? What do I have here at OVERWATCH, if not you...? What is my significance to you, if your work must always come first...?"
"... I don't believe I should remain on earth if you do not plan to stay alive for very long... I can't lose anyone else-- all SIEBREN and I have are each other."
"-- and we both need you."
